McCreery's Poem

I can't remember the specific names in this story, so I'm making them up. My grandmother, June, relayed it to me numerous times.  She told me that J.L. McCreery was her uncle (after she died my grandfather told me J.L. McCreery was her second or third cousin).  Anyway, McCreery wrote the poem, There Is No Death.  It had always meant a lot to her and when she died we put it on the back of her memorial card.

While J.L. McCreery's Poem "There Is No Death" is beautiful, it's not particularly profound until you learn, as I did, that J.L. McCreery always knew when there was a death in the family.

One night at the dinner table with his wife, he said, "Martha, you've had a relative die."

She said, "Oh? Which one? My sister?"

He said, "No."

She said, "My brother?"

He said, "No."

She said, "My mother?"

He said, "No."

His wife fell silent and didn't ask any more questions that night.

The next day they got word that her father had died. She said, "Why didn't you tell me?"

He said, "You didn't ask."

[I swear my grandmother always got a twinkle in her eye when she told this story.]